Matt Gross on His New Book, The Turk Who Loved Apples

Before he became Bon Appetit‘s web editor, Matt Gross traveled for a living. First as the Frugal Traveler for the New York Times, then for his column Getting Lost, Matt would write stories about eating ramen in Tokyo, hiking over the Harz mountains in Germany, picking apples on an organic farm in Turkey–in short, he went everywhere he could, and tried to eat everything good. And now, he’s written a book!

The Turk Who Loved Apples is Matt’s memoir of his entire life on the move, from his post-college stint living in Vietnam to his professional career as a travel writer. But it’s more than just a litany of sights seen and weird foods consumed. It’s about how to be a human being outside of your hometown–not a tourist, and not necessarily a self-righteous “traveler,” either, but a person who wants to see new places, make new friends, and learn how to deal with life when it doesn’t turn out quite like you planned.

But it’s also a book about food (and it’s on sale starting today). And seeing as how he’s a captive interviewee, we figured we should get him to share some of his travel food tips, eating anecdotes, and even a couple recipes that he picked up on the road.

Matt Gross with a coconut on his head in Burma (Credit: Andy Isaacson)

Why does food play such a big part in your travel memoir?
Matt Gross: I see the world so much through food that it becomes my main medium of interaction with people and with new countries. Even on my first big trip, at the age of almost eight, I was making food discoveries. I was in Legoland, in Denmark, the first time I had spaghetti bolognese. I remember seeing it on the menu, wanting it, ordering it, liking it, and then realizing I could order it wherever I went.

Do you spend time planning out your meals, or do you hit what looks good once you’ve arrived somehere?
MG: I love seeking out food and making these cultural and personal connections through food, but when every bite counts because you’re overseas on someone else’s dime to eat, you don’t want to waste a meal. You want all the right stuff. If you get the wrong bowl of ramen in Tokyo, the New York Times is not going to send you back just to correct that mistake. On that ramen trip, I was eating 3 or 4 bowls a day for 6 or 7 days, which ended up being something like 29 bowls.

As much as I like ramen, that sounds kind of grueling.
MG: It’s a discipline, definitely. I made a big mistake once in Italy: I was doing a story for the Times on this organization called homefood.it, which seeks to preserve not just regional or local specialities but the recipes of families throughout Italy. They arrange for you to eat in the homes of regular people, sometimes in big cities, sometimes in tiny villages. I booked both lunch and dinner on the same day, not realizing that the lunch was going to be one of most incredible, gut-busting lunches I’d ever eaten, and then four hours later I was going to have to eat an even bigger meal.

So who is this Turk, and why did he love apples?
MG: Kemal Gorgun was a Turkish apple farmer living in Anatolia who, unlike most of the farmers in the region, had spent his adult life in Istanbul working as some sort of engineer before deciding he didn’t like the city. But he really just wanted to grow apples in the countryside, which he ultimately did. Apples meant so much more to him–to grow them, to create this farm–than anything else. Here he was living out in the middle of nowhere on his own, with just his cat, and apples sustained him.

Did he love eating apples, too?
MG: We didn’t actually eat that many apples. But God, we ate so well! One day, driving back to the farm, we stopped at a bakery and got these huge rounds of crusty bread that the baker would take straight out of the oven and actually throw to the cashier. We took them back to the farm and they smelled so good and were so warm that we just took out a big jar of honey and a jar of olives swimming in olive oil and tore hunks off the bread, and it was the purest, greatest thing ever. In the three days there went through three kilos of yogurt that his neighbor Mehmet had brought over on his tractor. It was the greatest yogurt I’ve ever eaten, with this mineral tang to it, and this crispness and live sparkling flavor that I haven’t been able to find anywhere.

Is there any dish, or any ingredient, that you found while traveling that you now always buy back home?

MG: I will always buy Turkish yogurt here in the US. And I spent some time in Galicia, in the northwest of Spain, so I always seek out the white wines from that area, called Rias Baixas, made with the Albarino grape. Spain’s a big country with a lot of different regions and a lot of different wines, so if I see it, I’ll get it. Especially if I’m eating octopus.

Which Galicia is famous for.
MG: Oh, but that’s another thing I’ve learned in my travels. When I was in Galicia, eating the octopus that ruined me for eating octopus anywhere else because it so blew me away, I found they weren’t getting it from the Galician coast, but from Morocco! I found that fascinating, because the Galicians were catching octopus, but for some reason selling it to different parts of the world.

And then, a few years later, I was in Osaka doing a takoyaki crawl, going to every place I could go to in search of the best, and I finally this wonderful place that had been open for 35 years, run by the son of its founder. The takoyaki had creamy batter, crispy on the outside with chewy briny octopus inside, and I talked to the owner, and he was getting his octopus from Morocco, too! So, from Galicia to Osaka, people are using Moroccan octopus. What I love is that by paying attention to the food, you find these fascinating correspondences between two places that are otherwise utterly unlike each other. Who knows, maybe I’ll go to Chile next and find they’re using Moroccan octopus, too.

Has it ever been hard adjusting to eating back in the States?
MG: I do feel like the way I eat is pretty out of step with most Americans, whatever “Americans” means. I tend to eat a lot of Asian food, but I’m also a New England boy with a deep affection for Pioneer Valley corn on the cob and clam chowder.

Does weight ever become a problem, working on these food travel stories?
MG: I never really gain weight on the trips, because there’s a grueling aspect to them that feels like it burns off the calories I’m consuming. And I run. But I do come back from eating trips wanting only to eat salads. After my Tokyo ramen experience, all I wanted to do was eat iceberg lettuce, no dressing. Just iceberg lettuce, thank you very much.

Luckily for us, though, Matt knows how to cook a lot more than just iceberg lettuce. Here are three recipes that Matt encountered in his travels, and that he still makes all the time at home in Brooklyn. “They’re a bit seasonal, but they don’t rely on precise measurements, proportions, or cooking,” he says. “You can’t really screw them up.”

Turkish Apple Orchard BeansThis is the one-pot meal that Matt would eat with the titular Turk Who Loved Apples, Kemal Gorgun, on his farm in Anatolia. Cranberry beans also go by the alias “Borlotti beans,” so keep an eye out for either.

PREPARATION
Put everything but the parsley and yogurt in a saucepan, along with 1/4 to 1/2 cup water. Set over medium-high heat, and bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low. Cook at least an hour, stirring if you remember to, until beans are soft. Then stir in the chopped parsley.

Divide the beans evenly among four bowls, along with all of the cooking liquid. Garnish each with a big dollop of yogurt, and serve with fresh, crusty bread to sop up the juices.

(Credit: Matt Gross)

“Gu Ba” DoufuThere may be a canonical recipe for mapo doufu, but when an old home cook gave me permission to use ground lamb—a highly unorthodox approach—I realized that the way I’d been doing it for years was perfectly valid. “Mapo,” in Chinese, means something like “Pockmarked Old Lady,” so I updated it to “Gu Ba,” something like “Father Gross” (my last name) in Chinese.

PREPARATION
Heat the oil over high heat in a large saucepan. When it’s near smoking, toss in chilies and Sichuan peppercorns and cook, stirring, until very fragrant. Add ground pork and stir-fry until it’s nearly cooked through and broken up. Add douban jiang (the fermented bean paste) and black beans, and stir-fry until the meat is well coated and the bean paste is on the verge of overcooking.

Add the tofu and stir in; it should break up a bit, but the chunks should remain basically whole. Add soy sauce and 1/4 cup water. Bring to a simmer, turn heat to low, and cover. Cook 10 minutes, then empty everything into a bowl. Top with hua jiao (Sichuan pepper) oil and chopped scallions.

You can spot the Zucchini “Lasagne” in this shot that Matt took on his trip to Bucharest (Credit: Matt Gross)

Romanian Zucchini “Lasagne”There aren’t any noodles in this “Lasagne” (hence the scare quotes), but the grilled zuchinni and feta combine to make a summery dish that’s just as satisfying as the carb-heavy real thing. I encountered this on my Grand Tour of Europe for the Frugal Traveler column, as part of a traditional Romanian lunch in Bucharest, and have made it at home ever since.

PREPARATION
Fire up a grill, preferably charcoal. While the coals are heating up, blend the first 4 ingredients until they form a rough paste, then add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the feta.

Slice the zucchini lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slabs and brush them on both sides with olive oil. When the coals are hot, grill the zucchini in batches over medium-high heat until each side is charred and the vegetable is softened. As each slab comes off the grill, place it in a casserole dish to create a layer. When each layer is complete, spread it with a thin cover of the garlic-feta mixture. Continue alternating layers of grilled zucchini with the garlic-feta mixture until, well, you run out of both. Drizzle with the lemon juice, and serve.

Note: These recipes have not been tested by the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen.